Version 3.0 released

Victor

Version 3.0 is now available with a discounted price for upgrading from any previous version. Here are the main changes:

Bonded contact between incompatible 3D meshes
Unrefine x2 tool
Calculix/Abaqus .inp files can be opened and saved. Save is not very comprehensive yet
Spin softening for centrifugal force in modal vibration 3D and buckling
Centrifugal force for nonlinear static
Stress stiffening for shells in modal vibration. Not allowed with laminates.
Constraint equations (MPCs)
Transfer displacements from solution
Open .XYZ files from Prop Design, Accutrans3D or chemistry software
Cylindrical and spherical polar coordinates for Move/copy and Node coordinates.
3 orientations for cylindrical coordinate system plus spherical polar coordinates in New Node
Show model edges button to highlight sharp edges
Option to change the mesh color
Trackbar for changing the color plot scale. Right click menu for manual input or changing color options.
Can use Tochnog Professional solver. http://www.feat.nl/
Rayleigh damping can be applied to selected elements in the dynamic response analysis type
Gravity can be different in each load case
kN and kPa units added
Fluid Potential Flow 3D allows all solid element shapes
Keyboard shortcuts for mouse zoom/pan/rotate menu items
Quad local refinement x2 produces fewer triangles
Added Hex8 local refinement at a point by applying templates
Color key and node number colors adjust to the background color for greater contrast
Displays line3 as curved
Mouse cursors for pan, zoom, rotate and tape measure.
Dotted icon for invisible components
Field variable ranges on shells and beams update together.
Geometry items (CAD files) can have visibility toggled.
Deformed view automatically recalculates the scaling factor when changing modes and loadcases and solving
Gmsh export includes component and face selections for more compatibility with openfoam and bconverged.
Gmsh import reads solution data
Can create a named selection from the geometry graphics.
Velocity and angular velocity outputs in modal response.
Improved accuracy for modal response
Removed FROM … TO … BY format for entering lists of integers
Removed Non-Newtonian fluid analysis type and Herschel-Bulkley material type and properties
Removed Hex templates. Use point refinement and Refine Custom instead for common cases.
Removed coupled DOF from UI. When loading files, they're converted to constraint equations.
Deprecated Modal Vibration 2D Transverse Vibrations of Membrane analysis type. Use shells instead.
Bugfix: gravity with load cases (bug 4 listed on product page)
Bugfix: Eigenvalue on-axis cyclic symmetry nodes would sometimes cause a solver fail
Some view settings saved when restarting the program.
Tape measure shows distances in X, Y, Z directions too.

--

[Deleted User]

Congratulations Victor,

This release has lots of very useful and easy to use features.

Sergio

Congratulations Victor,

I have tested the bonded contact feature and is really usefull.

Regards

VMH

Victor,
For the bonded contact, if a compression only support face is adjacent to the bonded face, an error message came up.

VMH

I was testing the bonded contacts using various parts and bonded them together (see attachment).

If we can import and mesh multiple .step files at once instead of clicking one by one is also useful.

VMH

Attachments

VMH

Input file and update screenshot.

Victor

This is still a limitation - having constraints adjacent to the bonded contact. A couple of ways around it:
1) Prefer to put the master face near the constraint rather than the slave. It's more permissive but probably won't help in this case.
2) Extrude a thin layer of elements from the surface and put the constraint on them instead. That way there are no shared nodes.

Good idea about multiple files as once. I'll try to do that for v4. I see this complex assembly would have been very tedious!

VMH

Thanks Victor.

Will rigid links attaching from selected faces to a common node (to apply loading to that node and then be distributed to the selected faces) be coming up in the next version. I know we mentioned about it's being in progress.

Another good feature is in addition to having the current triad with Y pointing up, we could also have the triad with Z pointing up (next to the current one) giving the users options on the coordinate system to match their .step files. I'm modeling 3D solid in FreeCAD right now and usually have to rotate them to match Mecway triad. If I don't "union" the part all together and then rotate them, I have to rotate each part one by one and export one by one just as I did for the previous linkplate above. Thanks

Sergio

The last time that I worked with asemblies (modeled in NX), in order to keep the right position the quickest way was to export the asembly as an unique step file, then import again in NX (so it loose his creation history) and after that export each component separately. Other ways it would keep the component desing position and not the assembly position.

I vote also for the Z pointing up option, that's the way automotive modeling/analysis is done :-)

Victor

About rigid links, there are now a couple of new ways to do this. It depends what kind of behavior you want. To keep the selected faces rigid, you could use bonded contact to a single high-stiffness element that has the force on it. If you need to allow the selected faces to deform, you could use some constraint equations. In a simple case set the displacement of the loaded node equal to the average displacement of all the nodes on the selected faces. This allows some flexibility, but it might not be physically what you want.

Examples of both ways are shown in the attached picture and liml file.

Victor

VMH and Sergio, I'm not sure what you mean about the Z axis pointing up. It sounds like defining a new set of axes so that the new Z is the same direction as the current Y. That will introduce too much confusion.

Do you find that after importing from a CAD program, the parts of the model that were in the Z direction end up in the Y direction? In that case, I'd like to identify where the error is being introduced in the chain and try to correct it there. Eventually this might mean having a "rotate 90 degrees" option when you import a STEP file. I tried exporting from FreeCAD and found the part is oriented the same way wrt the axes in Mecway, so perhaps this isn't what you mean.

VMH

Victor, FreeCAD has its Z axis pointing vertically upward. Once we export the model to be imported to Mecway, that Z axis from FreeCAD that used to be pointing vertically upward is now pointing horizontal, and the Y axis from FreeCAD that used to be pointing horizontal is now pointing vertical. Therefore the model (.step file) is laying on its side when importing in Mecway.

Other FEA codes that I tried have two triads to choose from: Y axis pointing vertical and Z axis pointing vertical so the users choose the coordinate that is correct regardless of which triad the model was based on.

VMH

Victor, see attached files for reference. One way to correct the orientation issue is to mesh the .step file, then rotate the meshed model it. But if we want to add loads and boundary conditions directly on the geometry (.step) model, then the loads get screwed up because the load orientation still kept the same while the meshed model was already rotated. Then if we have to remesh to geometry again for any reasons, the process repeat.

If we can have an option when importing the .step file to rotate it say by -90 degree about the X axis, then all these issues go away.

If not, we have to rotate the model in CAD program like FreeCAD with Z axis pointing up by -90 degree about the X axis before exporting to .step. Then export the rotated model and import it to Mecway. Then the model will be oriented correctly in Mecway.

Victor

I think I understand now. It looks like the problem is just the default orientation of the axes relative to the screen. Is that right? In this case, rotating the geometry round the axes would certainly create further problems like you mentioned with the load orientation, as well as conceptually having to think about two systems. A better solution would be to rotate the axes relative to the screen so everything matches up.

For a straight-on view you can already do this by right clicking the arrowhead of the Y axis. That makes the Y axis point directly into the screen and the Z axis upward.

For the isometric view, it sounds like Mecway needs a new button to quickly rotate into the Z-up orientation without dragging the mouse. I'll look into adding this.

VMH

Victor, that's correct. A new button to quickly rotate into the Z-up orientation will do for the isometric.

As for the straight-on views, Mecway may still default to Y-up if we click on the arrowhead of the triad. One manual way is if we can also have an option of rotating the screen (view) by a user-defined degree, that would be very helpful. So if Mecway is pointing Y-up on the the straight-on view, the user can quickly rotate it.

Thanks